Meeting for Music

Our town is having a Winter Festival right now. Two weeks of shows, productions and concerts every night. There are lots of gigs to choose from and it pays to book early in case of missing something really memorable.

Our orchestra (N.S.O.)is performing this Saturday night. We have been rehearsing for several weeks now and the next three days are going to be intense with practising every spare moment and rehearsals with our conductor every night and Sat. morning.

We are playing Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and Dvorak's Cello Concerto and it is stirring music indeed.

The music seems to get right inside me. I fall asleep each night with it playing relentlessly in my head, and I hear the other voices of the clarinet entry and the flute, then the horns and the lower strings. It is quite strange the way this happens because I know that when the concert is over and we start rehearsing for the next one then this music will be forgotten and the new one will take over, and then several months later, I might be driving along in the car and hear some music on the radio and think " oh, we've played that ...what is it ?? "

At the moment though I am having a big love affair with this music.

I sleep fitfully the week prior to a concert and try to have a little rest in the afternoons so I can be alert for the evening rehearsal.

I might do some more work on this.

I want to start panel four, and it will be complicated enough to dispel the music in my head and replace it with "slip 2 to the back, purl three"....and so on.

Mittens for Mum

My Mum gets around in a battery-operated wheelchair. She loves the independence and the freedom of being able to leave the rest home where she lives, and take herself down to her favourite cafe for her cappuchino and cake.

She also makes regular excursions to the local supermarket to buy treats for herself and the other residents ( or inmates, as Mum likes to call them !).

She is partially paralysed but can still use her right hand to stop and start her chair, and this hand and the one resting in her lap have certainly noticed the colder temps. that we have been having.

I thought some warm mittens might do the trick, and knitted these with some wool that I bought from a friend who is about to embark on selling kits for mittens and socks using hand dyed possum/merino wool.

The idea with this super fine, very soft yarn is to felt the mittens once they are knitted.

I felted these using a mild wool wash and dunking them in the bathroom basin with hot water and gentle rubbing. I was a little bit cautious because I didn't want them to shrink too much and then not fit...they could probably do with a bit more felting but I will see what Mum thinks.

Playtime

Do you ever wish you were a child again ?

I do ( just sometimes) when I remember what it felt like to be on the unbalanced end of the see saw, to feel the little thrill in your tummy when you bounce down rather hard and you fly up in the air before landing back down in the seat with a bang.

Yesterday, whilst playing with my grandchildren, I wished I could become small again like Alice in Wonderland.

Getting ready for Spring

We have had a week at Mount Maunganui ...a wonderful, relaxing time away. Lots of knitting was done in the back of a car by me whilst looking at the rainy, sodden landscapes as we whizzed past on our way to Whakatane, or TeAwamutu.

I needed some colour and hand stitching to do in the evenings and found some lovely KF fabrics on our travels through the little towns.

It rained most of the time we were there, except for one perfectly glorious day (that made up for all the others) when we climbed to the top of the Mount.

When I came home I was desperate to spend time in the garden. It has been sadly neglected over the last two months and the amount that needs to be done is just a little bit overwhelming.

I made a start yesterday...replanting the strawberry bed, mulching them in with some leafy compost and fertiliser.

Today I am going to plant some stocks, poppies, polyanthus and put in the broad beans and a few sweet peas, and prepare a patch for some early potatoes.

Today I feel as if Spring is just a "sniff" away.

A Week Away

We are heading off to the North Island tomorrow morning, where I am hoping it will be a few degrees warmer than here.

We are flying over and NOT taking the ferry this time...phew.

I will be away from the blog for a week and will be away from this quilt that I recently started

and I won't have time to really delve into this book thoroughly,

and I am leaving behind my (recently arrived home) family,

but,

I will be back in a week's time, and I shall enjoy the break away....

see you soon.

Homecoming

A memorable day for us on Sunday when our eldest daughter arrived home ( to stay) with her family. They have been living in Norway for the last eighteen months and we have missed them oh, so very much !!

There has been new growth in these two, adventures and different experiences to be shared.

The last of the feijoas to be tasted, and lots of cuddles to be had,


and boys toys in the living room again. Life is sweet !

A week of

Spinning the fleece

and obsessively, (yes, that is the word I have to use) knitting my way through panel one and halfway through panel two. There was rather a lot of unravelling going on too this week, but it is all fixed now.